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During Daniel Webster’s first term as Secretary of State (1841-1843),
the primary foreign
policy issues involved Great Britain. These included
the northeast borders of the United States, the involvement of American citizens
in the Canadian rebellion of 1837, and the suppression of the international
slave trade. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty, signed August 9, 1842, resolved
these frictions in Anglo-American relations. On April 4, 1842, British Foreign
Secretary Lord Ashburton arrived in Washington at the head of a special mission
to the United States. The first order of business was settling the border
between the United States and Canada. Several disputes had arisen from differing
interpretations of the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary
War. When these differences led New Brunswick officials to arrest some Americans
in disputed areas, Maine called out the militia and seized the territory
in question, the so-called Aroostock war. The incident dramatized the need
for a border settlement. Webster and Ashburton agreed on a division of disputed
territory, giving 7,015 square miles to the United States and 5,012 to Great
Britain; agreed on the boundary line through the Great Lakes to the Lake
of the Woods; and agreed on provisions for open navigation in several bodies
of water. The issue of the Oregon border was left to a later date. After
the suppression of the Canadian Rebellion of 1837, several participants fled
to the United States where some American adventurers joined them. This band
seized a Canadian island in the Niagara River and engaged a U.S. ship, the Caroline
, to re-supply them. Canadian troops seized the Caroline in a New
York port, killing one crewman in the process, and set the ship free to drift
over Niagara Falls. Later, Alexander McLeod crossed into New York, bragging
that he had participated in the seizure of the Caroline, and had killed the
crewman. McLeod was arrested. Great Britain maintained that McLeod had acted
as a member the British forces and that it would take responsibility for
his actions. Should he be executed, it would mean war. The U.S. Government
agreed that McLeod could not be tried for actions committed under orders
of the British Government, but it was legally incapable of compelling the
State of New York to release him. New York would not back down and
tried McLeod. He was acquitted, but hard feelings remained. Webster
and Ashburton agreed on the principles of international law involved and
exchanged conciliatory statements. The United States enacted a law
allowing Federal judges to discharge any person proved to have acted under
instruction of a foreign power. The United States and Canada later concluded
an extradition treaty. Secretary Webster would not agree to British
inspection of U.S. ships suspected of carrying slaves, but did agree that
U.S. warships would be maintained off the coast of Africa to search suspected
slavers flying the American flag. Unfortunately, the United States
did not implement this agreement very vigorously until the Civil War began.
Webster and Ashburton also settled the case of the Creole, although
it was not mentioned in the treaty. The Creole was sailing to New Orleans
with 135 slaves, when a mutiny resulted in the death of one of the owners.
The ship sailed to the Bahamas where the slaves were freed. Great Britain
eventually paid $110,330 to the United States on the grounds that forcible
seizure of a ship did not suspend the operation of U.S. law. Also, outside
of the treaty, Great Britain agreed to end the impressment of American sailors.
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Cushing and Perry
Open Asia
Commercial expansion in Asia involved diplomatic entreaties with two important
nations, China and Japan. The "China Market" was always a significant
lure for American merchants who had engaged in trade with the declining empire
since the 18th century. Following the conclusion of the First Opium War in
1842, Britain forced China to grant it special privileges, including exclusive
British use of coastal ports. Not wanting to miss out on similar opportunities,
President John Tyler asked Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts to undertake a
mission to open Chinese ports also to American trade. In 1844, Cushing negotiated
the Treaty of Wangxia. This agreement granted to
Ameri
can merchants the same rights as Britain
based upon the "most-favored nation" principle. Access to Japan, a nation
mired in two centuries of seclusion, proved more difficult for the United
States. Determined not to be rebuffed as past missions had been, Commodore
Matthew C. Perry decided on a show of force. On July 14, 1853, Perry and
his flotilla of what the Japanese termed "black ships" arrived off of Edo.
Perry presented to representatives of the Japanese shogunate a letter from
President Millard Filmore requesting the establishment of commercial relations.
Masking an implied military threat, Perry announced that he would depart
but come back the next year to receive a reply from the shogunate. Returning
to Edo Bay the following February, Perry waited two weeks before disembarking
his ship to a gracious reception by the Japanese. On March 31, the Commodore
and his Japanese counterparts concluded the Treaty of Kanagawa, which guaranteed
protection for shipwrecked sailors and opened two remote ports for trade
and as sources of coal for American vessels.
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